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As we ascend the spiritual degrees, we experience different contradictory, confusing states when we do not understand anything. It happens that you as if completely lose your mind. After all, when you go from one state to another, your desire changes.

The mind is acquired together with the desire; it only serves the desire. The greater the desire, the more your mind grows to serve it, to help it get fulfilled. This is the way we operate.

When your desire becomes replaced with another one, you acquire a new desire, and your previous mind disappears. And between degrees you feel as if all the information was deleted from your “computer,” and you no longer know how to operate. They say that Baal Shem Tov even forgot letters and had to learn to read “from the beginning.”

This is a special state. This way man is being shown that he is just a machine. A desire disappears, memory disappears, and you feel that you no longer know how to do the simplest hand or leg movements, not to mention having to remember the names of people or things that happen around you.

This can appear to be a mental abnormality. But at the same time, a person understands and feels that all of this is happening to him; he as though analyzes himself from aside. There is a point where you feel: “This is happening to me. Look at me! Right now I am an empty vessel that lacks sensations and mind. I will receive a new sensation and mind!”

This is an absolute replacement. You acquire a new “computer,” and you need to load it with new programs; everything has to be done from the beginning. This is how we advance.[30691]From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

Until unity becomes a vital need, it will not come to life. We have two options: Either we emphasize the importance of unity among us, or all our other actions except unification will still bring the Light that Reforms, but it will be affecting us negatively, by demonstrating to us how disconnected we are. Then, we will finally unite out of necessity, as a result of pain and suffering.

Suppose I don’t wish to maintain my health and gradually ruin my organism until I start feeling that it is in trouble. This feeling forces me to begin the rehabilitation of my body.

Neither do we in the group maintain spiritual health; we don’t maintain unity. However, we do study, circulate Kabbalah, and perform various different kinds of actions. These acts draw the Light that Reforms. In the end, it will show us what the problem is. If we were not doing all this, we wouldn’t feel there is a problem. So, there is a certain benefit to it: It will help us realize that we are missing the point.

You want to find the Creator. Think about the “place,” the desire, where He is revealed. There is no Light without a Kli (vessel).[34241]From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

Excerpt from the speech at the 3rd World Spirit Forum “Toward Integral Consciousness” in Arosa (Switzerland), January 23, 2006:

If the cell of a living organism starts acting egoistically with regard to other cells, it becomes cancerous, kills the entire body, and, as a result, itself. A cancerous cell is continuously dividing. It devours all around it, having no obligations to them and no reactions to the organism’s commands.

As a matter of fact, this is the key to all the problems, not only the cancerous ailments. Our egoism develops such characteristics, although balance where everything lives according to the principle of equilibrium, harmony, and striving toward a comfortable state is instilled in Nature at all levels, be it the still, vegetative, or animate one. One way or the other, everything exists solely to maintain balance and grow toward it.

However, we don’t understand the problem correctly, and our view on the imbalance of forces is erroneous as well. The lack of balance in Nature is necessary in order to bring it to even greater harmony. We always advance by way of two states: balanced and imbalanced.

Initially, we existed in a perfect balanced state between minus and plus. All systems of our organism were working fine, Then, nature created in us an imbalanced state, and the negative outweighed the positive.

Why was it made so? It was done so that we would bring ourselves to a better state. How can we possibly bring ourselves to a balanced state? The negative is given to us from Above, by Nature, while we must balance it with a greater positive force, equal to it. This action is produced specifically by us.

Thus, Nature forces us to compensate ourselves, intentionally making us imbalanced. As soon as we have brought ourselves to equilibrium, it again creates in us an additional minus, from Above, and we must bring this minus to plus, to a balanced state, on our own.

Thus, we advance if we understand correctly that in this manner Nature wishes to elevate us from one degree to the next. At first, our egoism was valued at zero. Then, it acquired value minus one. Next, it gained an altruistic value plus one, and again, minus two egoistic degrees, then plus two altruistic ones, and so forth. This is how Nature makes grow.

If we understand this principle, then we pass through the “minus” states of descent very easily and come out to the states of ascent. Everyone who walks on the spiritual path feels this.

“Yesterday I felt so good. I understood and knew everything, experienced the subtlest sensations. Everything became nice and easy in my head, but today I feel a block. Nothing is clear; I feel nothing, and I hate everything. This is all so stupid. What am I doing? All of these so-called friends….”

For us, right now, it is exactly so. That’s why we should record our states. It will clarify what we are like and how we pass through them. Later, we will gradually realize that descents are given to us so we may compensate for them with ascents. By going through such step-by-step actions, we do advance, but only if we understand what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, people usually do the opposite. Instead of enhancing the plus, they want to annihilate the minus. This is where Kabbalah warns: “Don’t do it!”

Minus is all our energy, all our understanding, all our awareness. The greater a person is in his desire, the higher he stands. He can do more, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. The key is a great desire. Do not ever destroy it or lower it to a vegetative degree.

After all, egoism is our vehicle, our instrument, which helps us move forward. We must not eliminate it, we can’t anyway. We are constantly growing egoistically and have come to an egoistic crisis today, precisely so that we now could start using and realizing our desire correctly.[34209]From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011